Words Unspoken
by xxNight Angelxx
Summary: This is just a little JD oneshot about the First Kiss and learning important life lessons. It took from 8pm to 1.30am to write and spanned over 3 films so don't expect a work of art!


**Disclaimer: **I don't believe these characters or mine but then I have a really poor memory… I think I'd remember being the owner of something so cool though, don't you?

**A/N: **I know I said wasn't planning on writing anything for a while but this came to me one night when I couldn't sleep so I jotted the ideas down and that Friday, when I was supposed to be preparing for the first day back at school, I decided to write it up. It's mostly drivel and was pure fluff until it kind of took on a different direction. I'm not convinced at how well it sounds but tell me what you think anyway.

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"To this day I couldn't tell you what he was thinking. He was always doing that; acting before he thought about the consequences. He didn't really need to, I was always around to help him see his error and come up with his plan for making amends. That was the way we worked and it was one of the things I loved about him, not that I ever told him that. I never told him a lot of things, he never told me just as much, and maybe that's how it got to be as much as it was. Maybe that's how we got to here. But I think, maybe, I might be getting ahead of myself. First you need to understand something.

In our time working together we left a lot of things unsaid, we probably shouldn't have done but sometimes you just can't say them. We couldn't. The situation was difficult. He was my boss, I was his assistant. Do you have any idea of how wrong taking the employer/employee relationship further than that is? It gets messy and it gets complicated and I know hundreds of people cross that line every day but with us it would be different. We both worked at the White House for President Bartlett and not just in some minor role (not that any role at the White House is minor, it's just that some are more important than others). He was the Deputy Chief of Staff. He was the go-to man, the one you go to when you want some Senator to change his mind on some policy or other or if you have an issue you want the President to consider. And he had one of the most high-ranking, high profile jobs in the entire west wing, which meant that any kind of crossing the line would result in a **lot **of bad press.

So yeah, we never did anything, we never said anything but we weren't stupid, we knew what we felt. We just had to leave it unsaid but we told each other every day. Does that make sense? No, I suppose it doesn't really so I'll explain. We had looks, special smiles or glances that we reserved for each other. The way we touched, lingering hands as we passed files or the way he placed his hand at the small of my back as he steered me into a room; these were the things we did to tell each other just how we felt. And then there were the words, the ones with hidden meanings. He usually said them, I have a little more self-restraint, but we both understood them.

Here, I've compiled a list of the most common ones, ranging from one to ten words. I've put them in descending order for you:

He often said, "Where the hell have you been?" well, shouted is probably more the word, but the words would leave his mouth at least. What he would mean is _Where the hell were you…I missed you so much_. He would say this after I'd been away for a few days, or when I was late getting back from somewhere or even just when I forgot to tell him where I was going and he couldn't get in touch with me (which was rare, I made a point to always tell him where I was going just because it gave me a sense of security). He would panic you see, he lost a lot of people in his life and had far too many close calls. Anyone who means anything to him, he needs to know where he or she is, to know they're safe. As annoying as he was when he asked me, it was quite sweet and I would always, always, apologise. He was never angry with me about it.

Every time I was feeling low in my life it would show in my work, I'd screw up royally. He would moan at me at work, for appearances sake more than anything, but when we were done for the day he would take me to a little café-like place down the road from my apartment where he'd buy me the biggest of anything I wanted and apologise. Can you believe it? He'd apologise for doing his job! And he'd let me know it was all right for me to mistakes, he made them more often than I did. _I make mistakes. A lot. But you're not one. _That's what he would mean; he didn't regret putting me on the payroll back in the campaign, he never would. I would go to bed those nights feeling light and happier than I really should for a person who had so obviously messed something up.

Some nights we would go to a bar. We would drink, well Josh would drink the couple of whiskey shots it would take for him to get drunk, I'd stick to water (bottled obviously, we couldn't have Josh not spend any money on me) so that I could drive my inebriated boss home. We would sit in the bar and just talk about the things that we never usually got the chance to and then I would drive him home and we'd just sit in his car, looking at each other and the look in both our eyes would reflect what we were both thinking; _I wish we could be more than this_.

There would, of course, be times we got jealous. Just because we couldn't be together ourselves didn't mean we couldn't try and have relationships with others. They would always fail. Obviously. We didn't really want them to work out. Sabotage, to ourselves and each other, lies, a little deception, we did it all. The times it failed on the first date we would talk it over the next. The hidden message in it all being _why do you do this to yourself? _And then, those rare occasions it did go well the message would be _I can't believe you're seeing him/her again. _This, of course, would be after several dates and when things were starting to look good because those were the times we would be starting to get nervous that something **could **happen. Something that could lead to a couple that didn't consist of us together and that was a scary thought.

In moments of great weakness, when we were exhausted and frustrated and, more often than not, drunk, we would sit in his apartment and do some work that we forgot needed to be done for the day before. It was times like these, when we were burning the midnight oil, that my mind wandered to what it would be like had we met under different circumstances and I began to think of the life we could have had and I couldn't stop thinking about him and the things he did. The way he made me feel. _I can't stop thinking about you_,I wanted to tell him but every time I opened my mouth to say the words I grabbed my bottle of beer and drank instead. I could tell he knew though, I could see him give the Look. The look of suffering that I felt every time this happened. It never got easier.

Sometimes, something will happen and it will test the very foundations of what we believe in. When you work in the White House this happens more than you would like to admit. Josh, once, he got a card that said in the event of a nuclear attack he would go with the President to a safe location. He gave it back when he realised he was the only one to get it and he would have to live without his friends if anything **did** happen. No one really knows about that but some things, like Zoey's kidnapping, or Toby having to deal with the reappearance of his father, Sam not coping with the news of his father's affair or even the news of the President's MS. These things we shared together, they affected all of us in little ways and they're the things that brought us together, the things that made us care for each other more. And for Josh and me they were amazing experiences. He would wrap his arms around me and we'd hug and through our silence he would ask me to promise the same thing over and over again and, of course, I would agree in our own little way. _Promise me, you'll never leave_.

_You drive me crazy_, that was always the look in his eyes when I got too close. If we danced and our bodies stood less than a millimetre apart, when my hand brushed his arm when I laughed. The way my long hair would tickle him if I stood behind him to see over his shoulder. Sometimes it was just from simply being close enough to feel each other's breath. These were the closeness's we could not handle, the ones that teased and taunted and just brought home the fact we could never be together.

The most common look I got was a look of intense desire ad yearning. Often I would find Josh wasn't listening to a word I said but rather looking at my lips, watching them open and close and I could see the small smile that would play on his own lips and I would read the look in his eyes and know exactly what he was thinking because I had had the same thought several times over. _Kiss me_, two simple words that could never be spoken.

Here's the last word. The one that should have been spoken so many, many times but never ever was. _Stay_. It should have been said after Rosslyn, when I was helping Josh recuperate, in Germany after my operation, all those nights we worked late at his apartment or mine, every day we saw each other, when I left. But while it should have been said it never was and I'm wondering if, even if it had been said, would it have made a difference?

In fact, I'm wondering if any of the unspoken things had been said would it have made a difference? We still couldn't have been together, there was just too much stuff going on. There still is really. But just because you know something doesn't stop you thinking 'what if?' does it?

I bet, by now, you're probably trying to remember what the reason for all that stuff was and why I missed out three words. Well, here's the reason; all these words went unsaid, each and every one of them and while it **did** make us miserable in some ways, it kept us sane in others. We knew exactly what would happen if we let anything happen between us and yet the idea of being together eventually is what kept us going for so long. The more I thought about it, the more time that passed, the more I began to think 'it's never going to happen'. In fact, I was pretty much convinced until Josh acted like Josh.

The three words that went unsaid, _I love you_. The minute Josh said them I mentally cursed him for making it all reality. He was trying to make amends, for letting me go, for us missing so much time, but you know what? They didn't help. They made it worse. They'd been said; something had to happen now. Something that would only cause pain and misery and, almost certainly, a lot of bad press. The very thing we'd been avoiding ever since we met. And I know, you think I was being stupid and neurotic and all that stuff and believe me, I know I probably was. And trust me when I say it was great to hear the words, to let them wash over me but I was terrified of the ramifications that it would bring, especially the political ones for Josh but he didn't seem to care about them because he'd just confessed his love to me in the main foyer of the White House!

Worse than that though, or maybe this is the best part, I can't quite decide. He kissed me. It was nervous and clumsy but hard and loving at the same time and while there were no fireworks (metaphorical or otherwise) there were several flashes of light. I just knew more than one photographer snapped that kiss and I was going to be seeing it all over the papers tomorrow.

Josh looked bashful, I was terrified, several people were looking at us oddly, reporters and photographers were grinning eagerly at the prospect of tomorrows top story and the security guards dropped their usual stoic demeanour's to beam at us congratulatory. It made the panic in my stomach increase but then something odd happened. Josh took my hand and led me further into the White House. The forbidden touch, so out in the open, was comforting my nerves and I got an odd feeling that everything was going to be all right. I suddenly saw where we were going and stopped walking and pulled him in a different direction, stopping in a very familiar room.

He looked at me questioningly and I couldn't help but smile at his bemused expression, typical Josh not to get it. We were stood in what used to be his office in the West Wing and he still hadn't noticed, I shrugged off any hope of him realising and wrapped a hand around his neck.

"I love you too," I told him, kissing him quickly and taking his hand once more. I led him back the way he had been going in the first place; to the Oval Office to see President Bartlett on the last day of his term.

My smile widened as I realised that everyone would be in there; President Bartlett, Leo, CJ, Toby, Abbey, Zoey, Charlie, Debbie, Margaret, Bonnie, Ginger, Will, even Sam. The whole group together for the last time under the President's orders. It made sense for Josh and I to enter together, really together, that's how we always should have been and this brand new sense of peace came over me letting me know that that's how it was always going to be.

- - - -

It's funny really, I'm just beginning to realise that with the lives we led there never would have been "the right time to cross the line". This happened nine years ago and I'm only just realising that Josh made the right call. He realised something before I did, do you know how weird that is? All those words we didn't say, if one of us had been brave, if we'd said them sooner, we could have spent a lot more time together. Please, I'm begging you all that are here, you don't know how long you've got so don't waste it. Don't let other people's opinions get in your way; don't let someone stop you from getting what you really want. If there's one thing Josh taught me it's that if you really want something you have to fight for it, you have to earn it and you have to want it enough that you're willing to do anything to get it.

Life is difficult enough, don't make yourself obstacles. Don't not say something because you're afraid of what would happen. Me and Josh did that for nine years and by the time we realised we only had nine years to really be together. And they were the best nine years of my life, I'm just glad he got to see all his children before it happened…This little one nearly didn't make it, but he did, and Josh is going to live on through him…Thank you, everyone, for being here today, you don't know how much it means to my family, how much it would have meant to Josh."

Donna gasped for breath, her last few words came out choked and ragged. It was hard for her to do this, give the eulogy at her husband's funeral, harder still to try and be brave for their three children but the hardest part was retelling the story but she knew that she had to. She had to let them know that life shouldn't just past them by, they had to do something with it before it was toolate. She fought back the tears and shifted month-old Joshua Junior in her arms before stepping down from the podium and leading her other two children, Gwen and Sarah out of the church. A warm breeze ruffled her skirt and covered the fatherless, husbandless family, wrapping them momentarily before passing on. Donna looked down at her children. They all had her eyes and Josh's dark curly hair, and, despite the pain she felt that was slowly ripping her apart, she smiled. Looking straight on defiantly she continued to lead her children away from the church, the coffin following them to the graveyard for its burial.


End file.
